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Was this some kind of test? That he was being set up to fail? But it didn’t feel like a test. For once, she sounded more dismayed than belligerent.
‘Of course she did. She used to draw a lot of stuff. She’s a talented artist. Always has been. I never tried to discourage that,’ he said, annoyed that he sounded defensive. But he still had no clue where she was going with this.
Instead of giving him an answer, she walked past him into the kitchen.
‘Hey, you can’t just leave me hanging like that.’ He followed her into the sunny space, to find her filling the coffee pot at the sink. Her shoulders were rigid beneath the loose linen shirt she wore. ‘What’s the deal with Lizzie’s pictures?’
She put the pot down on the countertop and turned to face him, bracing her arms behind her. ‘She always used to draw you and me and her together. As a family,’ she replied tightly. ‘She never spoke about us getting back together. But I know it took her years to accept we were never going to be a family. Because of those pictures. Now do you understand?’
The tension in her shoulders eased as she fussed with the coffee maker.
He felt the tension she’d released tighten across his own shoulder blades. The guilt he thought he’d overcome back with a vengeance.
What did he say to that? When he’d never noticed, never realised Lizzie had harboured any such hopes? ‘I guess I missed that,’ he conceded. ‘Is that why you didn’t want her to know we were here together?’
She nodded.
He took the coffee canister out of the fridge and handed it to her. ‘You know, you could have asked me not to tell her and told me why, instead of getting your solicitor involved,’ he added, vindicated despite his guilt. Surely this was yet more proof they needed to be talking about Lizzie?
‘Really? You would have respected my wishes?’ She flicked her hand between the two of them, looking doubtful. ‘And kept quiet about us being here? If all I’d done was ask?’
‘Yes.’
Her gaze remained steady, the scepticism still very much in evidence.
‘If you’d told me you were worried about how Lizzie would react to the news and you’d told me why, of course I would have respected your decision. You’re her mother. You know her best.’
And you’ve spent a lot more time with her than I have. So thanks for that.
He swallowed past the ball of resentment stuck in his throat and waited for her to respond. He wasn’t going to blow this by losing his temper again.
‘I see.’ She spooned the coffee into the espresso cup, clipped it into the contraption, then flicked the switch. Finally, she leaned against the counter and sighed. ‘Then I guess I owe you another apology. I didn’t know I could trust you to be that mature about it.’
And the reason she didn’t know was because she had never given him the chance to prove he wasn’t the same bollocksed-up kid he’d been at twenty.
But he didn’t plan to blow their fragile truce by pointing that out. He would be reasonable now, even if it gave him an aneurysm. ‘Hal, I could bore your arse off with how mature I am now. Especially when it comes to my daughter’s well-being.’
Her cheeks flared pink, before she swung round to concentrate on the coffee again.
OK, that might have sounded more mature if you hadn’t mentioned her arse.
‘I’m glad we got that straight,’ he said, making sure he didn’t notice how her arse looked in her sunshine-yellow shorts.
Really should not have mentioned that arse.
He forced his gaze back up. ‘So now, how about you explain to me why you were trying to weasel out of our deal in Monroe’s office?’
‘I wasn’t trying to weasel out of our deal,’ she said, but the blush bloomed across her collarbone. A sure sign of a guilty conscience.
‘Then why were you challenging what I’d told Monroe about us?’ Interrogation was usually a good way to get to the truth and it gave him something to concentrate on instead of the skimpiness of the vest top she wore under her loose-fitting shirt. ‘We agreed I was going to do the talking. You came close to blowing our whole cover story.’
She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Fine, if you must know, I’m not comfortable sharing a cabin with you.’
‘Tough,’ he said, determined not to let the evidence of how much she still disliked him bother him. He didn’t need her to like him. He just needed her to cooperate with him. And she’d already agreed to do that, in writing. ‘The cover story’s not going to work if you stay somewhere else. So we’re stuck with each other. But you don’t have to worry. I’ll try to refrain from cutting my toenails in the kitchen sink, or burping after every meal, and I promise to do my fair share of the chores, just like I managed to do when we shared a place in Hackney. Which if you recall was missing a lot more than just Wi-Fi.’
Halle noted the tone—irritated and apparently clueless. She wasn’t buying it. Surely he couldn’t still be completely impervious to the undertone? The way his gaze had strayed to her mouth and then her cleavage a moment ago was a dead giveaway.
He must have figured out by now that their mutual animosity wasn’t the only reason their sharing a cabin together could get ugly.
